


It comes in waves

by ourephemeralsilence



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drama & Romance, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 08:26:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18587494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourephemeralsilence/pseuds/ourephemeralsilence
Summary: This is very experimental. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, but, hopefully, you will enjoy it. If you do wish to stick around, the plan is to make it multichapter. Also, I am still pinning down the storyline. If you have any suggestions or prompts, please feel free to send them my way.Again - I truly hope you enjoy reading this. See you on the other side!





	It comes in waves

**Author's Note:**

> This is very experimental. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, but, hopefully, you will enjoy it. If you do wish to stick around, the plan is to make it multichapter. Also, I am still pinning down the storyline. If you have any suggestions or prompts, please feel free to send them my way. 
> 
> Again - I truly hope you enjoy reading this. See you on the other side!

 

The waiting area felt eerily quiet. Carol was the only one waiting. This was not unusual, as the clinic made a point of spacing out appointments to ensure patients' privacy was protected as much as possible.

 _Patient_... the word made Carol quiver. She never felt particularly comfortable in seeking out help - professional or otherwise. She couldn't help but feel it as somehow a failure on her part. A sign of weakness - not being brave enough to face the harsh reality that she was on. She knew. She understood in a rational and logical way what she was feeling and why she was struggling. She knew what needed to be done. But somehow she froze, overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. The strength that would require and that once the path was set - well, there was no turning back.

Carol brought her attention back to the room. Letting her mind wander was dangerous. She felt restless, her heart pounding against her chest. She consciously started to control her breathing, her exhalations making a noticeable sound. She tried to fight the overpowering need to simply get up and leave.

The clinic was at the top of a hilly Victorian-like street. Black door with a passcode security system, which she had let herself in just before noon - another attempt of privacy - no reception.

Now. Now, Carol was in the waiting room. Waiting. Time passing so incredibly slow. Time's slowness increasing in tandem with her restlessness. The room was small, with three mustard-coloured two-seat sofas following its wall, making an incomplete square. The walls painted a decaying green, and with the yellow deemed light emanating from the gold, mid-century ceiling light, the whole room felt cryptic, out of place. Carol thought when she first entered it three months ago that the choice was rather odd for a psychology clinic.

Her inner dialogue was interrupted by the heavy sound of footsteps, as Jackie was coming down the stairs to meet her in the waiting room.

"Good afternoon, Carol. Are you ready to start?", Jackie said smiling, leaning against the door frame holding the doorknob.

"Hello. Yes, of course", Carol said whilst sitting up from the mustard sofa facing the waiting room door.

There was a great sense of ritual in these steps. This monotonous process becoming as time passed exacerbated by Jackie’s wardrobe and appearance. Just as Carol would always come in through the same door and invariably sit down in the same sofa in the waiting area, Jackie would always wear one of her two outfit options – black pencil skirt with a white button-up shirt or a straight suit trouser with a white button-up shirt.

On that particular day it was the former. Carol had noticed it as she followed Jackie up the stairs to the first floor, where a number of rooms were set up for consultations.

  
"Unfortunately, our usual room is not available today. Hope you don't mind."

"Uh...no, not at all. Change of scenery might be good," said Carol hesitantly.

After they both sat down in their respective armchairs, Jackie made a start.

"So, how was your week? How are you feeling?"

Carol raised her head meeting Jackie's piercing blue eyes. They were bright, penetrating eyes. It gave Carol the sense that Jackie could always find in this world a sense of wonder. Her voice was calm but rhythmic – succinct. She wanted Carol to fill in the silences. To open up and describe her emotions and experiences. A futile exercise. Carol had never fully opened up to her, although she consistently tried to fight this urge on every session. However, on that day, the outcome would be no different. 

**

"Carol, may I come in?"

"Yes, of course", said Carol gesturing for her student to sit down at the seat facing her. "How is your dissertation going?"

"Uh, I've been struggling to pin down my research question. It feels too broad at the moment. I was hoping I could run over some of my concerns with you."

"Sure," said Carol encouragingly.

Carol had been a professor at the university for the past decade with a focus on contemporary art practices and curatorial practices. Specifically, how art museums work with an increasingly diverse range of contemporary artists, and how the different practices are constructing new narratives of contemporary culture or leaving some unresolved.

Today, she was unconventionally holding her office hours after her session with Jackie. Carol always schedules them on a Wednesday rather than a Tuesday. But this Wednesday she was due to meet some researchers and upcoming performance artists for her research at a local art gallery.

After guiding the remaining students through their questions, Carol decided to pack up and go home. She was feeling particularly drained and relished at the idea of shutting off her mind, of closing her eyes and letting the darkness of the evening envelop and weigh down her body into a deep sleep.

  
**

Carol took her usual commute home. A 15-minute walk from her office to her flat. Today it was no different. The long avenue linking the campus to the Town Centre, with its hills and street lights in perfect alignment, which raised at the edge of the road to light her path home. She was walking absentmindedly. Her eyes surveying the changing path as her steps grew. Never fully gazing, focussing. Images seemingly received by sight, never truly processed. As evening approached, a spring warm breeze washed back a lock of her blonde hair. The descending sun had produced an all-permeating tangerine like haze. A sudden image came to Carol's mind - of  Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project installation in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern. Looking at the now pink, orange and blue hues of the sky, she yearned to capture these fleeting, spiritual, experiences of nature. To capture the feeling of complete abandonment of reality and remain fixed in this misty haze. She slowly came to a halt and keeping her head raised facing the sky, she closed her eyes for a moment. It was not long before consciousness and judgement crept in and, feeling embarrassed, Carol looked down. 

Their eyes met at the same instant, Carol glancing down from a dream-like state, and the woman just turning her head so she looked directly at Carol. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Musical note for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fC1qSxpmKo
> 
> The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson:  
> \- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsT9vEpfNq4  
> \- https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series/unilever-series-olafur-eliasson-weather-project-0
> 
> A love note:
> 
> "Here I came to the very edge  
> where nothing at all needs saying,  
> everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,  
> and the moon swam back,  
> its rays all silvered,  
> and time and again the darkness would be broken  
> by the crash of a wave,  
> and every day on the balcony of the sea,  
> wings open, fire is born,  
> and everything is blue again like morning." - Pablo Neruda.


End file.
